Therese Zink is a family physician and can be reached at her self-titled site, ThereseZink.com. Andrew Saal is chief medical officer, Providence Community Health Centers, Providence, RI.
One of the great nuisances in medicine is diagnosis coding. According to Medicare and insurance companies across the U.S., each and every disease must have a unique number. Everything must be quantified and recorded. Why? To facilitate analysis, number-crunching, regulations, reimbursements and, of course, we sometimes joke, to perpetuate the jobs of the coders. They usually know the nuances better than the doctors.
Is it truly possible to describe Mrs. Brown’s …
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